How did the Royal African Company affect the slave trade in Jamaica?

Established in 1672, the Royal African Company held a monopoly on the British slave trade, which fundamentally transformed Jamaica into one of the world’s busiest slave markets.12

The company’s operations facilitated a massive influx of enslaved people, causing the African population on the island to eventually outnumber Europeans by a ratio of 5 to 1. Beyond supplying labor for the island's own burgeoning sugar, indigo, and cacao plantations, the company’s presence supported a thriving smuggling trade that sold enslaved individuals to Spanish America. By the 18th century, Jamaica had become the largest single market for enslaved people in the region, receiving an estimated 610,000 individuals between 1700 and 1786.12

The commodification of human beings is a profound moral failure that caused immeasurable suffering and injustice. The Royal African Company’s role in institutionalizing this trade was central to the development of the plantation economy in Jamaica, cementing a system built upon the brutal exploitation of enslaved laborers.12